Short intro:

Bonding (or ‘teaming’) network interfaces is a way to bind 2 interfaces as one. This way you can configure a more redundant network connection. A normal bonded setup should of course be connected to a redundant switch (lan port1 to switch 1, lan port 2 to switch 2). It is also possible to do load balancing, but in this case traffic is low but availability should be high so i’m going for redundancy.

This setup is for a IBM Xserver running ubuntu 6.06.1 LTS server, this is a server with two Broadcom NetXtreme BCM5703X Gigabit Ethernet network interfaces which uses the ‘t3′ module.

Before proceeding check what interfaces you have and what module you are using for your network interfaces.

To get started with ‘bonding’ first you will need to look at your situation and check in what ‘mode’ you want to configure the interface, while I normally use ‘mode: 2′ this could maybe not work in your configuration so Google for a few pages that explain the differences (this is a referance base remember..)

The Configuration:

First edit /etc/modprobe.d/aliases and at the end of the file add (be sure to change the module, mode and miimon if necessary) :

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alias bond0 bonding
alias eth0 t3
alias eth1 t3
options bonding mode=2 miimon=100

Then edit /etc/modprobe.d/arch/i386 (and again be sure to change the module and miimon setting if necessary):

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alias bond0 bonding
options bonding mode=2 miimon=100 downdelay=200 updelay=200

First we need to check what mac interface we are going to use so use ‘ifconfig’ to get the mac for the primary adapter in your server (this is the one I normally use).

Now edit /etc/network/interfaces, disable all the settings for the current interface (except lo of course) and add the following:

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auto bond0
iface bond0 inet static
   address 192.168.0.100
   netmask 255.255.255.0
   network 192.168.0.0
   broadcast 192.168.0.255
   gateway 192.168.0.1
   hwaddress ether YOUR MAC
   post-up ifenslave bond0 eth0 eth1

Now reboot and you should be ready to go.

Testing the config:

Test it out by starting a ping to a other host in your network and unplug one cable at a time (no unplugging both interfaces won’t work..)

Also you can check the status with:

Already got tired of the default ubuntu usplash theme?
(* for the one’s that don’t know what the ‘usplash’ is: its that nice graphical boot screen used in ubuntu linux)

Here’s the way to change it to a brand new one (first the ‘geeky’ hardway then the easy way)

The hardway

First of course find a nice usplash theme (for some links to site’s with usplash theme’s see below) download it to your desktop and extract the downloaded file to get the .so file and move the new file to /usr/lib/usplash/.
(* note that in ubuntu you can do: sudo apt-get install usplash* to install some already default usplash themes to /usr/lib/usplash)

Then we need to link the new usplash theme to be the default:

And finaly reconfigure the kernel:

To get a preview of your just installed usplash (get out with ‘ctrl’ ‘alt’ ‘F7′):

The easy way

First install the ‘startupmanager’ available from apt-get.

Then download your new usplash theme and extract the .so file from the archive and follow the next steps:

• startup the startup manager by going to ‘system’ -> ‘Administration’ -> StartUp-Manager or open a console and type ‘sudo startupmanager’
• go to the ‘appearance’ tab and select ‘manage usplash themes’
• select ‘add’
• browse to your new usplash theme.so file
• double click the .so file or select it and choose ‘open’
• now select your new theme and choose ‘close’
• press ‘close’ for the 2nd time and the new usplash will be installed

Some sites with usplash themes:

• http://www.ubuntu-art.org
• http://www.gnome-look.org (search for ‘usplash’)

* Note that this is for debian based distro’s.

If you want to connect to your desktop or server that is running X you can install a vnc server to do so..
We will use gdm and xinetd to get it working so that if you boot up the computer it should all work at once.
To install a vnc server you need atleast the following packages installed:

Then you will need to add a new service to the services list in /etc/services

Then you need to change the gdm.conf file

Then add a file in /etc/xinetd.d/ called vncserver

Restart xinetd and you should be done..

Try to connect to the box using a vnc viewer to :0